Artist Statement

  The purpose of my artwork is to be vulnerable about who I am. My motivation for making art is to express myself and create something only I can make. These artworks often include photos from my childhood, nature, and self-portraits. Many of my works reflect on one or more of these topics.

   I compose nature elements through photographs, line art, landscapes, and abstract floral forms. This common theme allows these works to communicate more effectively how moments are precious yet fleeting. I often use flowers that are starting to wilt, are vibrant in color, and have compelling visual movement. The death of plants in my art allows for more complex ideas on my memories, relationships, or mental health journey through their symbolic meaning. Wilting flowers also have more elaborate linework, wrinkles, and folds, than a fresh flower, allowing me to make the painting more hyper-realistic or expressive in my abstract brushstrokes. 

   I switch between hyperrealism and abstract naturalism in many of my works. When going for a more abstract look, I use pastel or charcoal in the piece to create smoothly blended looks or a crayon-like texture to emphasize my linework. In my realistic paintings, I print a photograph that I often have manipulated in photoshop. I then paint on top of this photo with gouache or acrylics, creating a mix of painterly and photographic techniques. Combined with these two methods, it renders to work to read as a painting up close and a photograph from far away. I shifted between these two ways of painting based on how I would prefer to express myself at the moment. I prefer abstraction when my present emotional state is what I want to focus on, and realism when the subject of the painting is the main concern of the piece.